If you look carefully enough, you can see traces of it all over Hamilton. From an eatery where
people from all walks of urban
life buy a coffee for one another, to New Hope Community Bikes rebuilding relationships along with bicycles. Little
snapshots of the restoration
the gospel offers are everywhere in what has been known
as a hard-scrabble city.

Christian efforts in the cityhave been magnified in recentyears by TrueCity Hamilton, amultidenominational networkof churches co-operating for“the good of the city.” The co-operation of TrueCity is whyhampers delivered to peopleon the margins each Christ-mas. Together, churches helphost CrossCulture, a biannualworship and service event foryouth and university students.TrueCity is a strategy as wellas a movement. ParticipantChris Schoon, senior pastor ofFirst Hamilton Christian Re-formed Church, explains thatTrueCity “reminds us throughfriendship and mutual servicethat God’s grace, mission andKingdom are bigger than us.”Yes, TrueCity is a network –sort of. Leaders try to avoid thelanguage and potential baggageof calling it an organization,because TrueCity feels moreorganic than that. TrueCity ischurches pooling their effortsto meet the needs of theirneighbours, bringing new lev-els of creativity and co-oper-ation to the command to loveGod and love neighbour.TrueCity just turned ten.And there is excitement inthe air as leaders and partici-pating congregations meet tocelebrate, look back and plotwhat comes next.

Dave Witt is network partnership developer for TrueCity.
“We knew it wouldn’t be easy
to start the network, but we
didn’t realize what it would
take to maintain it,” says Witt.
“Institutionally, collaboration

Hamilton churches turnFEATURE

A network of churches working together helps transform Canada’s ninth largest city

By Matthew Forrest Lowe

Christians Against Poverty, a
debt-counselling ministry recently transplanted to Canada,
chose Hamilton as the base for
its new work. They knew they
could connect quickly and easily with many churches here.

Those watching TrueCity
call it a force for change.
Churches who didn’t necessarily work together before are
now co-ordinating their efforts to do outreach projects
together, like distributing
backpacks stuffed with supplies to schoolchildren every
fall. One church may provide
the supplies, the other the
hands to place them in the
bags. Same with the food